Machines of this type are known since a long time ago. The Spanish Introduction Patent 322,339, for example, disclosed a machine for opening and tearing textile materials which basically includes a supply system which conveys the textile products or waste through any number of rag tearing units mounted in series. Each of the units being composed of a rag tearing drum or cylinder provided with pins in front of which the products were carried by a rotating roll in front of a conveyor. After each drum, the products are collected on a plate and sucked through a pierced and rotating metallic drum which is depressed thanks to a sucking fan, which acts as filter. At the bottom of the machine there is a conveyor belt which recirculates the rags or threads not torn toward the initial supply system.
Anyway, this type and other existing machines more or less based on same principle, are produced in modular form. That means that the lap of fibers moves through several modules. Each of these modules being provided with a rag tearing drum with mentioned fittings and elements, constituting several steps or stations. In some machines, the number of the stations is two or three. In other machines there are even six. The material sustains the process of all of them until the material is collected at the outlet of the final drum.
In fact, in accordance with the type and nature of the material, the process should not necessarily include a high number of drums, for example six, but that sometimes with less drums it is enough to obtain a satisfactory result. This, therefore, makes it necessary to have available several types of machines with one, two, three and even more drums, respectively, to work with the different types of more or less coarse material. The significant economic investment is clear.